As I am more or less inarticulate with dismay on the Iraq war disaster, the video horror, the photos (well, you could get me going on issues involving representation of the Other, the weird tourist-photo, trophy-wielding iconography of the images, but that is all intellectual distancing, isn't it), it is fortunate that more expressive, more practiced, and much better known writers are saying things I'd like to say.
Such as Neal Pollack in The Stranger:
Now, my friends, I give you the elected vice president of the United States, Joseph Lieberman:
"Those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized. And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Falluja a while ago never received an apology from anybody."
Oh, Senator Lieberman. How do I tell thee to shut up? Let me count the ways. First, not a single person currently in Iraq, despite what the orangutan masses might think, had anything to do with 9/11, with the possible exception of Ahmad Chalabi. Second, do soldiers on either side of an armed conflict have to apologize for killing one another? If that's the case, then we've got a lot of condolence notes to send out. The third point you made is a nonsense verse, so we'll let it pass. But overall, Senator, you've lost your Joementum, and with it your public-speaking privileges.
Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, shut up!
(With thanks to marjorie)
Posted by Emily at May 13, 2004 02:08 PM